


More Than This

by sunhawk (sunhawkflamesprite)



Category: CSI: Miami
Genre: Angst, Episode Related, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Pre-Slash, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-12-03
Updated: 2005-12-03
Packaged: 2017-10-20 07:00:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,615
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/210017
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunhawkflamesprite/pseuds/sunhawk
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Spoiler for "Nailed" - Ryan has been imagining things</p>
            </blockquote>





	More Than This

**Author's Note:**

> This didn't start out as a songfic but end half of this story was randomly influenced by The Cure song "More Than This" - just a soft and poignant song that i recommend listening to, it is on the X-files soundtrack. As always, thank you to my favourite and beloved beta raimm ^_^

Ever since three inches of iron had violently introduced itself into the top ridge of his eye socket, Ryan had started imagining things.

First, when the doctor had patiently told him to hold still and then carefully plucked the nail from his head with a soft but completely disturbing popping sound. Ryan vaguely recalled telling Alexx that he could still feel the nail, impacted in his face; a ghostly metal stake leading right to his hiccuping brain. He waveringly lifted his arm and tried to pull it out again, do it properly this time, but Alexx wisely took his hand into her warm grasp.

"It's gone, honey." She said gently, as only Alexx could. It didn't help unnerve Ryan, because it was so similar to how she talked to the dead on her table, but he knew she was just trying to make sure he knew he wasn't alone. He appreciated her support, somewhere under the sedative they had given him, and knew she was right. But still he felt the cold prick of metal under his skin.

The iciness reminded him of his second hallucination; the way his arm felt like it was scalded all the way from his hand down to his elbow. The shock of his injuries had robbed Ryan of much memory of what happened after the impact, but he vividly remembered how Eric seemed to materialize out of thin air and suddenly the growing agony of Ryan's wound was briefly eclipsed by the warmth of Eric's grip on his hand. Ryan had clung desperately to that warmth, to the strength in Eric's fingers, the way he kept his arm tensed like he could keep Ryan from falling into a chasm beneath him that lead to the shadowy world of unconsciousness. He tried to say something to Eric, tried to ask him where had he come from, how did he know Ryan needed him, but all that came out of Ryan's mouth was a sickly moan that ebbed with the promised return in the form of screams. He remembered that Eric's shouts seemed to echo down the long corridor of his shocked mind, his grim determination bulldozing through the heartsick look in his brown gaze that wouldn't let Ryan look away. The last thing Ryan was aware of, before the panic and pain rendered him senseless, was the solid support of Eric's frame as he half-carried him to his Hummer.

After what seemed like only a moment staring into space, Ryan turned his head back towards Alexx and realized she was gone. He wondered what exactly they had given him; he couldn't remember the last instance his time sense had gone wandering when it didn't involve his attention being sucked into labwork. A nurse came in and adjusted the drip feed they had attached to his arm, she smiled at his weak protest that he didn't need drugs and politely told him that it was doctor's orders to ensure he didn't move too much and let the swelling go down. She said something about releasing him in a few hours but Ryan was already succumbing to the mental gauze the drugs wrapped him in and he fell into a dizzy sleep.

His third imagining came to Ryan in the middle of a dream.

He was dreaming of hallways swathed in pale blue veiling. Ryan tried to push through the spidery hangings only to discover stone underneath, forming walls as solid as granite. He wandered the endless corridors, vainly searching for a window or door but no means for escape did he find. Ryan was utterly alone in this maze, each turn he took brought only more empty halls, his cries for help and even the sound of his footsteps swallowed up by the soft cloth surrounding him. Darkness came and went, without meaning or pattern, so that days or minutes could have been passing but time meant nothing to Ryan. During one of the prolonged periods of twilight, he sat on the unmarked floor and put his head in his hands.

In that soft silence, the sound of a door opening was like a shot in the dark. Ryan tried to say something but found himself mute, his body unable to move from his prone position. He slipped unsteadily between his dream and the room he knew he was in, unsure of which reality had created the lone noise. He thought he heard someone enter his room, with the soft tread of someone sneaking, but after a moment there was only silence. In his dream, a cool breeze blew over him and his sleeping body shivered faintly, confused by what was dream-made and what was real. Ryan felt isolated deep in his mind yet he thought there was someone there, beyond his sight, watching him.

Silence had returned but still Ryan could sense someone moving closer to him; the cool breeze turning into a whisper of movement at the side of his bed. Ryan waited, wondering if it was Alexx returning or even Horatio coming in to check on him. But there was no motherly touch, no steadfast words of quiet comfort, only silence that was now completely motionless.

Ryan knew it was only his lonely mind, creating fantasy even as his subconscious firmly knew there was no one there. The longer he strained to convince himself he wasn't trapped in stone walls, the easier it was to imagine the sound of someone breathing like they were seated beside him. Ryan even fancied there was a strained quality to the silence around him, personified by a single phrase too quiet to call a mutter.

 _*"Dammit, Wolfe."*_

A male voice, familiar to Ryan but there was something unfamilar about the rough way the voice sounded, like it was fighting against betraying some sort of anguish. And there was a ghost of a touch along his brow, careful to avoid his bandages, that was equally familiar in the callused feel to the thumbtip but the hesitancy to the caress rendered it unplacable. Ryan wished more than ever that he could open his eyes, to stop this dream from twisting his world by confronting it with the stark fact that he knew he was alone in the room. His brow creased with the effort and that created a hollow ache above his eye in a way the careful touch hadn't, and he sighed in his sleep from discomfort and confusion.

Ryan's hand blindly reached into empty air, not sure whether he wanted to claw his face or dispel the lingering hallucination. He struggled for a moment, weak and chilled with unease, then Ryan found his cold hand suddenly gripped tightly by the strong clasp of another. The warmth of that hand was a shock to Ryan's system, bringing him a thumbslength from waking entirely.

He _*knew*_ that warmth, knew the strength of that grip; Ryan clung to both and forced a name from his slumbering mouth, the word no more than a slurred whisper. The hand holding his squeezed in response and then Ryan's hand was gently pulled to rest upon a warm chest, right above a heartbeat that seemed to be going far too quickly.

Ryan fought to open his eyes and he succeeded for a one brief moment, his gaze only a slender vista under his long lashes, just enough to catch a muddled glance of fading blue mixed with an umber figure leaning forward. But the effort tired him and he settled back into darkness with only a blurry image to take with him.

That husky voice hushed him, urged him back to sleep. Soft lips grazed his forehead, a butterfly kiss full of secrets, tingling along his skin. Ryan sighed again, tension sliding from his slender frame, and for a split second he thought he imagined a twin sigh touching his open lips. Ryan felt his hand being carefully placed back onto the bed, then the warmth that had been keeping him so close to waking was gone and Ryan plunged back into full darkness. The last thing Ryan sensed was the too-brief sensation of fingers smoothing his short hair and then he fell into a place where not even walls or wind could find him.

When Ryan woke again, the room was as empty as it had ever been. Ryan opened his eyes, now clear and unclouded, and looked at his hand lying limp at his side. Any trace of warmth had fled and with it all the fantasies his dream had tried to trick him into believing. But, somehow, this return of reason didn't bring Ryan any comfort. All his logic, the rational rules that governed Ryan's world and gave it meaning, had somehow become hollow. For once, instead of taking strength from knowing what was certain in this world, Ryan found himself yearning for something uncertain and undefinable, without boundaries or rules. Something more than this.

fin.  
3.12.05

 

 _For a second of your life  
Tell me that it's true  
Waiting for a sign  
It's all I want of you  
Your heart hides a secret  
A promise of what is  
Of something more than this_

 _Make-believe in magic  
Make-believe in dreams  
Make-believe -- Impossible  
Nothing as it seems  
See, touch, taste, smell, hear  
But never know if it's real_

 _For a second of your life  
Tell me if it's true  
Anywhere we are  
Is all I want of you  
On your lips lies a secret  
A promise of a kiss  
Of something more than this_

 _Another second of my life  
Not knowing if it's true  
Make-believe in nothing  
Is all I want of you  
Whispering the secret  
Whispering there is  
Always something other  
Something more than this_   



End file.
